Syria, Russia: Israel behind strike

Assad regime says it did not attack rebel town with gas

BEIRUT — International condemnation grew over a suspected poison gas attack in a rebel-held town near Damascus said to have been carried out by the Syrian government, while Syria and its main ally, Russia, blamed Israel for airstrikes on a Syrian air base Monday that reportedly killed 14 people, including four Iranians.

The timing of the airstrikes in central Homs province, hours after President Donald Trump said there would be “a big price to pay” for the chemical weapons attack, raised questions about whether Israel was acting alone or as a proxy for the United States.

The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, in his most dire warning since taking the job four years ago, warned the U.N. Security Council that recent grave events have drawn national, regional and international actors “into dangerous situations of potential or actual confrontation.”

Israel did not comment on Monday’s missile strike.

Iran, a key ally of Assad, condemned the airstrikes, which it said killed four Iranians, including a colonel and a member of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace force.

Opposition activists said 40 people died in Saturday night’s chemical attack in the town of Douma, the last remaining rebel bastion in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, blaming Assad’s forces. The attack killed entire families in their homes and underground shelters, opposition activists and local rescuers said.

The Syrian government strongly denied it carried out a chemical weapons attack and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it has opened an investigation.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, urged inspectors from the watchdog agency to fly to Syria’s capital Tuesday and visit the site in a nearby rebel-held town.

He denied any attack occurred, telling the Security Council that experts from Russia’s military radiological, biological and chemical unit went to the site and found no chemical substances on the ground, no dead, and no poisoned people in hospitals.

British Prime Minister Theresa

May said Assad’s government and its backers, including Russia, “must be held to account” if it is found to have been responsible for the suspected poison gas attack.

The European Union also laid the blame squarely on Assad’s government.